"Why should you entertain such a wish?" inquired Ellen, timidly, and blushing as she spoke.
"Because then I had not been broken-hearted," said her companion, with a sigh. "I had still retained my peace of mind--my step should still have been light on the heather, and my thoughts free and careless as the wind upon the mountains."
"You speak in enigmas," replied Ellen, blushing deeper than before. "I do not understand you," she added, but with a manner that contradicted the assertion.
"Then I will be more plain with you, Ellen," replied her companion:--"I love you, I love you, fair girl, to distraction."
This declaration was too unequivocal to be evaded; yet poor Ellen, though her heart responded to the sentiment, knew not what reply to make in words. Her agitation was extreme--so great as almost to impede her respiration.
"We are strangers, sir," she at length said--"total strangers; and such language as this should, if spoken at all, be spoken only when it is warranted by a longer and more intimate acquaintance. Ours is literally but of yesterday, although you have certainly crowded into that short space as much kindness as it would possibly admit of; and I and my friends are grateful for it--sincerely grateful. Still we are but strangers."
"Strangers, Ellen!" replied her lover, getting more and more energetic and impassioned as he spoke--"no, we are not strangers--at least you are none to me. From the first instant I saw you, you were no longer a stranger. From that instant, you had a home in this heart, and on that instant you stood before me confessed one of the loveliest and gentlest of your sex. What more would an age of acquaintance have discovered? What more is there need to learn."
At this instant, a shout from one of the gentlemen of the party interrupted the enthusiastic speaker, and put an end, for the time, to the conversation of the lovers. The call, however, that had been made on their attention by their friend, being merely intended to intimate that they had them in view, Ellen's guide soon found another opportunity of renewing his suit. We do not, however, think it necessary that we should renew a description of it--tedious as the conversation of all lovers is to third parties. We shall only say, then, that, long ere Ellen and her handsome and accomplished guide parted, the affections of the simple, confiding girl were unalterably fixed. Whether they were happily disposed of, the sequel will show.